2022 has been a wildly volatile year for light skinless bellies. We started the year reaching all-time weekly highs on 9/13 skinless bellies from February 14 through the week of March 28. Immediately following this, belly prices plummeted before slowly regaining some steam into Memorial Day weekend.

Taking a step back, the first part of year saw skinless belly prices go nearly parabolic as the Omicron COVID-19 variant resulted in consumers staying at home to cook, thus buying retail bacon in droves. As we hit February, concerns eased and the re-opening of foodservice increased restaurant sales of bacon. According to Urner Barry prices, the weekly average price of light bellies rose nearly 58.8% from the first of the year through the week of February 21^st.

Following this, consumers began pushing back at the all-time high bacon prices, which, as of March, were $1.35/lb higher than year ago levels, according to USDA data...

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Ryan Hojnowski
Urner Barry
1-732-240-5330 ext 284
rhojnowski@urnerbarry.com